UX, AIX, FLAYX...

[Liam Proven]

On 06/09/07, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
> Liam Proven wrote:
> >> How do you count "number of users" on a payroll system?  There's
> >> probably only a couple of users, but it's the number of people who get
> >> paid which matters...
> >
> > Is it? Even if none of those people access said computer in any way?
>
> Yes.  Without a doubt.

I think if we're trying to compare sales volumes, market shares or
anything like that, how many people per dollar spent are affected or
something might count. That would disproportionately favour big iron,
I'm sure.

> > I don't know any metric, off the top of my head, that attempts to
> > measure systems' importance. What matters, what sets prices, is users,
> > number of processors, number of systems, things like that. This is
> > what determines sales charts and so on.
>
> But sales numbers are by no means the only measure of importance.  If
> sales numbers were the only measure, then every mainframe would be
> replaced by a giant pile of PCs to take advantage of the economies of
> scale.  They tried that and failed miserably.

Absolutely - and I'm delighted to see the big systems making something
of a comeback.

I mean, hey, if I wasn't interested in and keen on such things, I
wouldn't have been looking for a VAX or indeed a job in OpenVMS
support! :¬) I'm delighted to learn that OpenVMS is still widely used
and new systems are being put in, and that what I'd thought was an
obsolete skill on my CV is attracting attention.

But we do need some metric, some base of comparison, to talk about
them meaningfully and be able to compare their relative success... no?

> > Even if you measured the mainframes' /cost/ as an absolute, it would
> > still be tiny compared to the hundreds of millions of PCs sold.
> >
> > Take the mainframe away, lots of people would be inconvenienced, yes.
> > But the same is true of those millions of PCs.
>
> More people would be inconvenienced by the loss of, say, 5000 mainframes
> than by the loss of 5000 PCs.

That's very true, certainly.


-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
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